


Heart of Knives

by Lomonaaeren



Series: Wednesday One-Shots [20]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Anger, Angst, Blindness, Dark, Dark Draco Malfoy, Dark Harry, Issues of Disability, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-14
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-14 23:41:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8033560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: The one where Ron and Hermione Find Out.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Content Notes: Angst, discussions of violence and gore, issues of disability (Harry’s eyes have been burned out)
> 
> This is another Wednesday one-shot in response to a request by satsumatsu for the next part in the Bloodstone Potions series. I should post the second part of this story next week.

“I wanted to talk to you alone, Harry.”

Harry turned around slowly. He’d been making himself a cup of tea when Hermione popped out of the Floo, and frankly, he hadn’t already said something because he’d thought it was Malfoy, and Malfoy preferred to work in silence most days now. He heard Hermione’s quick breathing and frowned. “Is there something wrong with Ron?”

“What are you _doing_?”

Harry closed his fingers on the edge of the counter, both because he wanted to keep steady and because he thought it would probably be out of Hermione’s line of sight. “Making tea.”

“Not _that_! I just—I read about a potion that might give you back your sight, but it’s Dark, and it needs to be made with lots of gemstones.”

“How much would it cost? Is it actually illegal to brew? Because I might be able to pay someone as long as—”

“It also involves the vitreous humor of lots of different people,” Hermione said, and from the choked tone in her voice, she really sounded as if she might cry. “Harry, what did you _do_? Why did you _do_ it?”

“Because I want to see again.”

Hermione said nothing. Harry couldn’t even hear if she’d moved away from where she’d been standing at first. He found that he didn’t much care. He stood there and listened, and when she didn’t do anything, either, he went back to brewing the tea. His senses had finally started to sharpen the way the Healers had promised they would, and he could distinguish most of the ingredients he needed by smell.

“It’s Dark. You know that. And it has something to do with the Eye Killer, doesn’t it?”

Hermione’s voice was so small that Harry could have ignored it. And he thought later that he really should have. But he could answer her question without stopping his movements, so he did. “Believe what you want, Hermione.”

“I don’t care that it’s illegal, Harry. It’s _immoral_. You could do so many other things. Why don’t you—why don’t you _live_ , instead of giving up on life and only longing for what you lost?”

Harry bowed his head. He said nothing, but he hoped that Hermione wouldn’t assume it was because he was contrite. Nothing could be further from the truth. But he knew if he spoke his thoughts at this moment, his friendship with Hermione would die in the flame raging through him.

“Harry? I want an _answer_.”

“You already have it,” Harry whispered harshly. “I’m doing this because I want to see again.”

“But you—I know you, Harry. You’re too good a person to do something like this. Did someone put you under the Imperius? Another will-influencing curse?” Harry heard her wand swishing this time as she checked him for the spells, not speaking the incantations to do it aloud because she probably didn’t want to insult him.

“As though the Imperius could affect me,” said Harry, and turned around so that his back was to the counter, and braced both hands against it this time. He was breathing too fast. He knew it. He knew it would look suspicious to Hermione, and that was horrible. It was horrible that she had figured out as much as she had about the potion that Malfoy was brewing.

_How did she do it anyway? Probably researched all the methods she could think of to give me back my sight, and stumbled across mention of that potion somewhere._

“It might. You’ve changed, Harry. Sometimes, I know, pain can lower your resistance, and your desperation to see again might make you subconsciously go along with someone who seemed to promise you that—”

“If someone really brewed this potion for me, it wouldn’t be a trick, would it?” Harry cut in. “It would really let me see again?”

He listened to her breathing, and knew the answer before she spoke it. “Of course it would. But it’s a banned potion for a reason, Harry. All the blood it needs—including _heart’s_ blood—”

 _What would she say if she knew that Malfoy wanked me through getting that blood?_ Harry concealed the hysterical laugh, and only said, “If you think I’ve changed enough to be affected by the Imperius, then you must know that I’ve changed enough to want that potion no matter the cost.”

“You’ll lose worse than your sight if you’re really that desperate, Harry.”

“What else could I lose?”

“Your heart.”

“You mean that someone might need to mash my heart to brew the potion?” It was the only thing Harry could think of. And he did think Malfoy would have told him if that was the case, and Malfoy wanted Harry to live to be his rival again. He wouldn’t take his heart unless there was some way of returning it.

Harry wanted to laugh when he realized what he was thinking. He would have if he was alone. _I trust Malfoy with my heart. How stupid is that?_

“Harry—you have to listen to me.” Hermione’s voice was unsteady, and from the clinking noise, she’d almost dropped her wand on the table. “I think something is really _wrong_. You’re not only planning on using an evil potion, but you took me literally. I mean that you’ll lose your sense of right and wrong. What will happen when you have your sight back?”

“I’ll be happy.” And Harry had no doubt of that. If nothing else, Malfoy wouldn’t like him brooding, and he would do his best to tug Harry out of any depression he fell into. Probably by his cock.

“No. You only think that. You’ll be able to see, and you’ll be able to see how horrible this was, too.”

Harry would have liked to have real eyes instead of balls of glass that the Healers had implanted, simply so he could roll them. Then again, he would have better things to do with new eyes, once Malfoy regrew them. “It’s easy for you to say that, Hermione. You’re not the one who was tied down and had your eyes burned out by the Carrows.”

Hermione gulped, the way she did when she was crying. Harry cocked his head. Had he come this far in letting Malfoy brew the potion _because_ he couldn’t see? Not just because he wanted his eyes back so badly, but because he couldn’t see Hermione’s tears? Sometime in the past, he probably would have given up the idea at once if it upset her so much.

“It’s not easy,” she finally fought through her sobs to say. “I _hate_ what happened to you, Harry. But I want you to find a real way out of it. This isn’t the way.”

“What’s the real way?” Harry was a little curious to see what she would say. After all, there were lots of solutions that she and Ron had already tried out, and none of them had worked. The only thing that Harry had really done a lot of was attempting to find a way to hold a job through owl post, and there were so many spells he needed to cast that he hadn’t advanced far even with that.

“You—you have to live. You have to.”

“This potion is going to help me learn how to live. How to get back to it. I thought you would be happy about that.”

“It isn’t _you_!” Hermione all but screamed, and launched herself at him, her fingers digging into his arms for a moment. Then Harry moved to the side and she fell against the counter and almost knocked his teacup over, from the sound. “It isn’t—you can’t _really_ believe that you’re going to just walk into this and then walk out.”

“I don’t know what you mean.” It was pleasant to say that with a smile. Harry didn’t know how she would react to the smile. He couldn’t see it.

_One of the things I’m going to do when my eyes heal is simply look into a mirror for as long as I like._

“You can’t believe that you can play with Dark magic and still be the same,” Hermione breathed out, so fast that Harry had to concentrate to be sure he had her. “You can’t believe that.”

“Make up your mind, Hermione. Am I going to change as a result of this, or have I changed already?”

“It’s both! It’s always both! But this kind of change doesn’t warp and twist the very _person_ you are!”

Harry shrugged. “If you want, you can say that the Darkness comes in during the brewing process. And I’m not doing the brewing. I highly doubt _drinking_ the potion is going to twist me in the way you seem to be thinking of.”

“You wouldn’t think of it that way, no,” Hermione whispered, and now she sounded absurdly tormented, at least in Harry’s opinion. “But—just tolerating this. Tolerating murder.”

“I didn’t think any of the victims of the Eye Killer had died lately.”

Hermione said nothing. Harry turned his head, keeping up his sense of where she was by the noisy breathing she couldn’t hide, and the way her footsteps shuffled across the carpet towards the door.

Really, once you got used to concentrating on them, it was amazing how loud most humans were.

“I have to think,” Hermione said. “And I need to talk with Ron.” She paused, but didn’t leave, and Harry heard a soft slithering sound that he thought was her hand working on the doorknob. “Then we’ll come back. We’re going to talk you out of this. I know what you think you have to do, but—we’re still your best friends. I would have sensed it if _that_ had changed. We’re going to convince you otherwise.”

The door opened and shut. Harry stood there for a second, using his ears and even his nose to make sure that Hermione had really left.

Then he went back to making his tea.

*

“They were here, weren’t they?”

Draco didn’t even pause to see if Potter nodded. He knew the signs, although some were more obvious than others. For example, there was the chair that had been shoved away from the side of the table where Potter never sat. There was the soot scattered on the floor around the fireplace when Potter never traveled by Floo anymore except with help.

But Draco thought even those signs paled next to the stench of righteousness in the air.

“Just Hermione.” Potter was sipping the last of a cup of tea, staring at the far wall. He moved his head towards Draco. Draco was glad to note that his eyelids were lowered, covering the green glass balls that the Healers had inserted in his empty sockets in place of his real eyes. The not-quite-right green always drove Draco to distraction.

“And she knows.”

“About the potion? You told her?” Draco placed some black sapphires on the table beside his pestle. He didn’t think Potter would be that stupid, but he could feel saliva gushing into his mouth at the thought anyway. It meant Potter might have grown back into some of the reckless stupidity that typified Draco’s rival.

If he was that near the person Draco demanded already, then it might not make as much difference as he thought, the length of time the potion still had to brew.

“No. She put together the clues about the Eye Killer with things she’s been reading.” Potter’s hands fluttered above the teacup. Draco watched them and entertained the fantasy of breaking his fingers to make them be still. He wasn’t seeing the world through them right now, only being nervous in a way that didn’t suit him. “And she doesn’t know it’s you, but she knows someone is brewing this particular potion for me. Her discovering who it is can’t be far away.”

“I look forward to it.”

Potter paused in that particular way Draco knew. Draco smiled and went to work crushing the largest black sapphire with his mortar and pestle, looking critically at the others he’d brought along. He had to choose the two least flawed for this potion. Unfortunately, black sapphires weren’t common in the first place, and buying large numbers of them would attract attention. The one he was crushing now was undoubtedly the best, but he would have a hard time deciding between a few of the others.

“Why do you look forward to it? The _last_ thing you should want is Hermione knowing you’re brewing an illegal potion!”

“Potter, Potter. Do you imagine I’d allow her to go to the Aurors?”

“You are _not_ killing one of my best friends.”

“Oh, I know that. I don’t need to.” Draco held up the pestle to look at the glittering fragments cradled in it, then looked at the whole sapphires. Perhaps he could search for similarities to the one he’d already chosen, and settle the question that way. “The only thing I need to do is wait for her to kill it.”

“What? Kill it?”

“Your friendship. It’s dying of its own weight, isn’t it? The fact that she immediately flew into scolding you for this, and assumed you couldn’t have a good reason for participating in it, and probably told you you should go on ‘living’ without defining that—well, how can she stride around proclaiming that’s easy when _she’s_ never lost her sight?”

Potter was silent, his hands flexing at his sides. Draco nodded and chose his second sapphire, the third-largest, setting the others aside for the next stage of the potion that didn’t actually involve crushing gems. Meanwhile, he had to labor to reduce the ones he had to their component fragments.

It was exhausting work, and Potter didn’t speak until Draco was almost done with the first one. Then he said, “I think she would probably take losing her eyes better than I did.”

“We’ll never know. And you have the right to take it any way you like.”

Potter let loose a little gust, a gush, of breath, and then he said, “I do, don’t I?”

Draco shook his head a little. It was a bit pathetic, how often he had to remind Potter of his rights, but then again, Potter had lived endless years in bondage to people less impressive than himself. If Draco hadn’t reminded him, he would fall back into that old bondage.

The thought made Draco want to spit as much as the loss of Potter’s original eyes once had. If Potter’s friends could turn him away from the promise of the potion, then Draco would never have his rival back.

But he didn’t intend to let that happen. He finished crushing the sapphires and turned around. “I need something else from you.”

Potter had been standing with his head bowed, apparently considering his future without friends, but he looked up at that, his eyelids twitching above the glass. “What is it?”

Draco slid a step closer, delighting in the way that Potter immediately tensed and focused on the sound. “You would have said that in a much more hostile tone, once. Don’t tell me that you’re going _soft_ on me, Potter.”

“Come and touch me and feel how _hard_ I am, Malfoy.”

Draco chuckled. He hadn’t realized that touching Potter to give him pleasure and distract him from Draco taking his heart’s blood would have such an effect. “I think I will,” he said, and crossed the distance and plunged his hand down Potter’s pants while his rival was still opening his mouth for the retort.

Potter was hot and hard against his palm in seconds, because of Draco’s touch if not before. He reduced his groan to a grunt, and reached down and shoved Draco’s hand more roughly against himself. Draco sighed and crowded in, ramming shoulders and chests together.

“Not without reciprocation this time, Potter,” he whispered.

Potter didn’t even hesitate, except for the groping he had to do because Draco was in the wrong place when he first reached out. Draco leaned back and thrust into his fingers, eyes closed and body moving at a strong pace he couldn’t abate and realized a moment later, with a little start, he didn’t want to.

This was a diversion. The _goal_ was to have his rival back.

But in the meantime, he could admit how damn good this felt, as Potter’s fingers curled around his shaft and wandered up and down. Potter made an inquisitive little huffing sound that disappeared into a loud cry as Draco palmed him and then bent down a little so that they were at more of the same height.

This close, Potter’s eyelids were fluttering up and down. Draco chose to shut his own eyes. He didn’t want to see those unnatural balls of green glass. He wanted to imagine what would come.

How he would cast spells when Potter was capable of dodging again. How he would laugh aloud when he realized that Potter could see him, and then try a curse at his face to make him duck. How he would force Potter to kneel and suck him off when he could _see_ what was coming at his throat.

Draco caught his breath and came so hard that afterimages broke and wheeled about his eyes. It was more his own fantasies than Potter’s stroking hand that had done it. In fact, Potter’s hand had paused in shock. Draco reached down and punished him for it with a racing yank, one that pulled a grunt and an orgasm from Potter at the same moment.

Draco leaned his head on Potter’s shoulder for a moment, not to be tender but to recover his balance. His hip was against the table for the same reason.

But his mind was all over the place. It was the first time he had thought of forcing Potter to have sex with him when he could see again.

_As long as it's force. As long as it's not...something else..._

Draco shook his head. He had told Potter that his friendships were dying of their own weight, and that was true. It didn't mean he could be friends with Draco. _Friendship_ wasn't the right word when Draco had done things Potter had to consider Dark and illegal.

_Even if it means that he can see again?_

Scowling, Draco ripped himself away from Potter hard enough to startle a gasp out of him. Then he reached down and cast a _Scourgify_ on Potter's cock, which got more than a gasp. He was bending and clutching the table as if he would fall on his face.

"Remember what reciprocation means," Draco breathed harshly, before he turned away to finish crushing the other stones he'd brought with him.

He stopped. There was no excuse for what had happened while he was distracted, except that Potter had given no alarm either. Granger stood in front of the Floo with her hands over her mouth.

"No," she said, in a tiny voice that was strangled with shock.

Draco had his wand dangling at his side. He should have been able to raise it in time, there was no reason he shouldn't, but Granger still whirled and went through the Floo before he could cast his _Obliviate._

The thick silence was broken by Potter's voice. "I suppose that _has_ killed it, then."


	2. Part Two

“That’s torn it. You can’t really think that you’re going to go back to being friends with them, can you, Potter?”

Harry braced himself with one elbow against the table, and reached along it. Yes, there was the mug of Firewhisky that Malfoy had poured and brought over for him without being asked. Harry had known it was Firewhisky from the sound of the cork coming loose, and the smell. “Yes,” he said, and swallowed. His throat stung and watered.

_Not my eyes. Not anymore._

“What are you talking about?” Malfoy’s voice was as low and threatening as a spider.

“Because Ron and Hermione have stood by me through everything.” Harry turned his head in the direction of the Floo. Even though it wasn’t open, he could almost imagine he heard the sound of Ron arguing with Hermione. They supported and bolstered each other. They would talk each other around when Ron heard what had happened.

“Not through this. I know that. I thought you believed the same thing. And now that she’s actually caught us…”

“They might still think of me as the innocent who’s being tricked. That was what Hermione was talking about before you came. That I might be under the Imperius or some other Dark spell. They won’t forgive you, but they could forgive _me_.”

Harry sipped the Firewhisky again through Malfoy’s ensuing silence. He missed the sting in his eyes.

“But if they arrest me or chase me away,” Malfoy finally said, “then you won’t get the potion that you want.”

“Yes,” Harry said, and slammed the mug down hard enough that he could imagine Malfoy starting forwards to grab it, even though Harry hadn’t shattered it. “That’s a dilemma.”

“You’re going to choose me. And the potion.”

But Malfoy didn’t sound sure, and Harry found he liked that. He sipped again, and smiled absently in Malfoy’s general direction. It might not be right at his face, but Malfoy had never shown that he cared about that. “Are you so sure? You sound a little _un_ sure there, Malfoy.”

“You will. I won’t have put in all this labor for nothing.”

“And it’s labor to learn to use my other senses, too, and spells without being able to see where I’m aiming. You could argue that _I’m_ the one wasting my labor in learning to be blind if I let you make the potion for me. You could always find someone else who needs that kind of potion and sell it to them.”

Silence. Harry listened, though, and he heard the way Malfoy was turning, and he knew what would happen, and he moved out of the way just in time when Malfoy tried to cut through the mug and leave shards and blood all over him.

The curse cut his arm instead, and Harry grimaced as he felt the blood flow. It was harder healing himself when he couldn’t see than he ever would have imagined. The last time, he’d overestimated the size of the cut and ended up making an entire good patch of his skin feel raw and sore.

“Damn you, Potter.” Malfoy’s voice was hoarse. Harry heard him shift his wand, and this time, he incanted the spell aloud as he aimed. “ _Episkey_.”

Harry felt some of the skin mend, but not all of it. He snorted and swiped at the blood that was making his skin slimy. “Overestimated your own strength?”

“I’ve overestimated _you_ , you madman. Goddamn you, burn you, scorch you, drive you to suicide—”

But Malfoy came up beside him, and Harry let him take the arm and extend it and cast a few more spells that would stem the flow of blood. Harry sighed and leaned his head back on the chair. His pleasure in taunting Malfoy had fled. He could only think of what he was going to lose, and it wasn’t pleasant.

Malfoy finished muttering the last of a string of curses that Harry hadn’t paid much attention to, and reached out and gripped his chin, turning his head. Harry had no idea why. It wouldn’t enable either of them to see each other any better.

“I am invested in you,” Malfoy said faintly. “I don’t want to brew this potion for someone else. I would take it and toss it out the window right now, and crush all my ingredients, if I thought you wouldn’t take it.”

Harry flinched, harder than he had when he realized Hermione was in the room with them, and Malfoy let out a breathless little laugh that was a lot like a rooster crow. Harry touched his arm and wondered if he was Malfoy’s basilisk.

“Yes, I thought so. It matters to you that I have this potion. And it matters more to you than your friends.”

Harry shuddered. He didn’t want to think that. He didn’t want to think that he was a horrible person. He’d been able to stand up under Hermione’s accusations and refute them because she kept talking, at the same time, about what he should do differently, and Harry couldn’t _stand_ that. Not when she didn’t know what it was like.

But this way, it sounded horrible. Surely he couldn’t give up friends who had been with him since childhood because he wanted to see again?

“Maybe you don’t like to hear it put that way,” Malfoy said. His hands were moving restlessly over Harry’s shoulders and arms, sometimes clasping them, sometimes sliding down, as if he assumed he would get more of an answer the more they moved. “But it’s true. You’re still mine. In my debt.”

“Your rival,” Harry muttered. He posed a question he never had before. “If there was a way that you could get your rival back without brewing this potion, you would stop right now, wouldn’t you?”

“What a stupid question, Potter. There’s no way to get you back without this potion, so that means—”

“But you could find someone else to be your rival, someone whole—”

Malfoy’s punch literally staggered him, and made his mouth bleed. Harry fell against the table, reaching up to feel his lips. He’d cut both them and his tongue on his teeth. He ran his fingers around the small holes in his tongue.

“You’re an idiot,” said Malfoy, with an air of finality so, well, _final_ that Harry blinked at him in the privacy of his darkness. “You think I’m going to walk away and find someone else so perfectly matched to me?”

Harry snorted, then flinched as it brought his bloody tongue up against his teeth. “Careful, Malfoy. If someone was listening to you without knowing that you were giving me back my eyes just so I can see to beat you at Quidditch…”

“I know what they would think. I don’t care. What matters is what _you_ think.”

Harry’s heartbeat was painful. He sought around for some means of distracting Malfoy. “You’re going to take all this time to brew this potion. Years, you told me. And what happens if I don’t want to be your rival?”

“You will.”

“What are you counting on, my Gryffindor sense of fair play? Because I think that died when I agreed to let you start brewing this potion for me.”

“No,” said Malfoy. “I’m counting on the fact that I’m going to make it good for you, so good that you’ll never want to walk away.” His voice was breathy, and he leaned his arm against Harry’s chest, his face so close that Harry could feel it even without a direct touch. “I know what I can do. I know what you _used_ to do. Together, that will make an irresistible combination for the Harry Potter I restore to life.”

Harry swallowed. Malfoy was probably tracing the motion of his throat with as much eagerness as he was listening to his words. And Malfoy reached out now and touched Harry’s Adam’s apple with such gentleness.

_He could crush it, and I couldn’t reach my wand in time to stop him._

It wasn’t the first time Harry had had that sort of thought, but it was the first time it had ever made him so hard. He swayed towards Malfoy, who slid a confident hand down to his groin, and chuckled, and said, “Again?”

Harry nodded, his throat too dry, and bereft of the words anyway.

Malfoy pushed him upright with a casual shove, and shook his head in such a way that Harry could hear his hair rustle against his collar. “Not yet. I have a critical stage of the potion to concentrate on, and _you_ have packing to finish.”

“Packing?” Harry hated sounding like a parrot, but it was hard not to when Malfoy’s mind leaped and flashed between subjects faster than Harry’s thoughts could follow.

“Of course. If you want to get away from here before those so-called friends of yours get the courage to confront you, then you should hurry. And no, I’m not going to help you. All that labor that you supposedly put into learning to be blind? Let’s see the results.”

Harry gaped at Malfoy’s back, or what he assumed was his back. He thought he’d heard Malfoy turn around to face his mortar and pestle again, and the slight sound of them going, crushing another of the innumerable gemstones the potion required.

Of course, Malfoy could have been crushing something from the ease of long practice, and looking back at him over his shoulder. It drove Harry mad that he couldn’t be sure of little things like that anymore.

“I haven’t agreed to go anywhere with you, Malfoy.”

A snort.

“And we couldn’t go to Malfoy Manor, anyway. That’s the first place they would look, now that Hermione knows you’re behind the brewing of the potion.”

“Did I say that we would go to Malfoy Manor? Nothing wrong with your hearing, I thought. Or do you need a potion to correct that, too?”

“Where else are we going to _go_ , Malfoy? I know that your family lost all the properties other than the Manor in the war. And most of their money. Which is why you have to steal the vitreous humor from other people’s eyes rather than buying it, right?”

“You remembered what _eye-juice_ is called!” Malfoy clapped his hands. “I’m so proud of you!”

Harry made a noise that only made Malfoy snort again. “Why do you think I didn’t get caught, Potter? I have a few safe places set up that I could Apparate to when the Aurors were trying to track me. Boltholes. Not as large and comfortable as your…abode.” The pause was so delicate Harry could imagine all sorts of words there. “We’ll be going to one of those. As soon as you pack.”

“And I still haven’t said I would go anywhere with you.”

“Your friends will either try to talk to you down, or take you somewhere by force. Probably St. Mungo’s, since they’ll be convinced you need a Mind-Healer.” By the absent sound of his voice, Malfoy was paying more attention to whatever gemstone he was about to crush than he was to Harry. Harry ground his teeth. “Either way, you’ll lose any chance I can offer. Of course you’re going to come with me. Because you’re not stupid.”

Harry slammed his eyelids shut, reminded in that moment that he couldn’t even do something as simple as close his eyes in frustration. Or concentration. Just another thing the Carrows had taken from him.

Malfoy was offering him that back.

Was it worth more than the friendship that Ron and Hermione offered? Could he really walk away from his friends without a farewell, because they had discovered something—unusual? He could try to talk them around. They would listen to him in the end. Especially if he yielded and went along with them to a Mind-Healer.

_Who am I kidding? Hermione will want me to acknowledge how wrong this was. What a mistake I made. They won’t be happy until I say that, no matter what they say about learning to live with blindness._

Harry shivered. Part of him thought that, no matter what his friends said, he should be able to stay with them. Because they had been through so much together. Including things that were tougher than this.

_Were they?_

And the more he thought about that, the more uncertain he was. He had once thought the worst pain in the world was the basilisk biting him. Then the pain that Voldemort sent through the scar. Then watching Cedric die. Then watching Sirius die. Then Dumbledore. And then realizing he’d been raised to go walking up to Voldemort and die.

There was so much warmth pulsing in his throat, as if he had a mouthful of blood he was going to throw up.

Now, he knew. Right now, the worst pain in his life was the remembrance of the Carrows burning his eyes out. There were still nights he had to take a Throat-Soother because he woke up screaming so hard.

“I’ll pack,” he whispered.

“Good,” said Malfoy, a hard, simple word, but one that acted like a pair of hands against Harry’s spine, spinning him around and urging him into his bedroom where he would find most of what he needed to take with him.

*

Draco closed his eyes and slumped against the counter as soon as he was alone. Yes, he ought to have been able to do it anyway, because Potter couldn’t see him, and so on, but Potter was surprisingly quick to pick things up from faint sounds.

He hadn’t been sure he would win the debate.

If he’d been dealing with someone like himself, it would never have been in doubt, of course. Any Malfoy would have been packed even before the sounds of the Floo closing behind Granger faded.

But the whole point was that Potter wasn’t him, that he was something—someone—Draco could never understand, and that Draco wanted to return him to someone worth fighting.

_So. Now you have Potter. What are you going to do?_

Draco wished they had time to arrange a false death scene. As long as Potter’s friends knew he was still alive, they would follow him no matter where he went, sniff out trails, and bay at the door for him to forgive them. But they had no time. The only thing they could do was vanish, into one of the places Draco had set up that neither Death Eaters nor Aurors had been able to find.

And not even Weasley was a full-fledged Auror as yet.

 _We’ll be fine,_ Draco thought, and turned his head as he listened to things whistling around in Potter’s bedroom. _Although maybe I should go and help him pack before he breaks half the things he wants to bring with him._

He stepped into the room and ducked a book that was heading for the trunk. The book smashed into the wall and then fell into the trunk with its spine cracked. Potter cursed half-heartedly and leaned against the wall, his useless eyelids fluttering.

“Let me help.”

Potter straightened and gave Draco a look at those false eyes he hated. “You don’t _have_ to! I didn’t ask you to! You can go back in the kitchen and grind up whatever gemstones you need to!”

“But right now I don’t need to,” said Draco mildly, and then picked up another book lying on the floor that Potter had probably been trying to aim at the trunk he couldn’t see. It made him laugh inside to help Potter when he didn’t want to be helped. Doing things that Potter didn’t want was half the fun of “healing” him. “So do you want all these books on the shelves in my place? When you can’t read them?”

“There’s a spell that recites the words aloud.” Potter bowed his head, and Draco felt himself relax as those horrible, wrong green eyes disappeared from view once more. “I’m trying to learn Arithmancy right now. Since I never learned it at Hogwarts.”

Now that Draco thought about it, Potter’s other elective class had been Divination. He snorted. “Arithmancy doesn’t mean much unless you can do the equations yourself, Potter.”

“I know. I’m still working on the spells that make the books respond.”

Draco thought about it, then nodded. At least Potter would get more magic perfected by working with Draco. “All right. Then I’ll take the books on Arithmancy along, and anything else you didn’t study in Hogwarts.”

“What? But I want to look up some Transfiguration…”

“I have plenty of books on that. And I’ll help you with the spells that make the books respond. I don’t think you can master them on your own.”

Potter nibbled at his lips, then nodded. “Fine.” He turned to a cupboard in the wall. “And the clothes…”

“You can walk around naked for all of me. Your eyes are the only part of you I don’t like looking at.”

To Draco’s delight, the back of Potter’s neck flushed. “Not the point,” he muttered, and then began to gather the clothes up with swishes of his wand. They were mostly ordinary robes that didn’t flatter him at all, and some Muggle clothing Draco planned to burn at the first opportunity. But then, since he couldn’t see, Draco supposed it didn’t much matter to Potter what he wore.

_Someday, it will. I’ll be the first thing he sees when he really opens his eyes, but he can see a good pair of robes second._

“I think that’s enough,” Draco said, as the trunk filled up. “Merlin knows that I have all the towels and toiletries you’ll ever need.”

“Of course you would, well-groomed prat that you are,” Potter said, in a mutter he probably hadn’t meant for Draco to overhear.

But Potter wasn’t the only one who had worked to sharpen his other senses. Draco gave him a dazzling smile and waved his wand, making the lid of the trunk slam hard enough to make Potter jump. “Sorry, what was that? How would you know how well-groomed I am, since you can’t _see_?”

“The shape of your hair against my face when you were leaning over me.”

Draco blinked. Of course, it was true that he took as much care of his grooming as he ever had. It suited his sense of what was due to him, and it also meant that he looked nothing like a criminal, in case anyone had ever connected him to the Eye Killer.

But he was startled to find that he believed Potter, and that Potter had sensed what he had. And the fact that he realized right after that made a stirring start below his waist.

Potter was noticing things other than his lack of eyes and his friends. He was committed to moving on in the world, recovering from his blindness, and standing up and reclaiming the greatness that had once been his.

Which would become reflected greatness on Draco, since he was Potter’s main rival.

He advanced quickly, making Potter stiffen but not step out of the way before Draco pinned him against the wall. Draco bent close enough that Potter could feel the neat shape of Draco’s hair against his jaw again.

“Is that so?” Draco purred at Potter, and rubbed his head against Potter’s for a second. As long as Potter didn’t open his eyes and reveal the glass, he looked a lot like the boy Draco had tormented at school and never beaten at Quidditch. “What do you feel now?”

It took Potter a few seconds to answer, but that only increased the thick beat in Draco’s chest. “Your hardness against my thigh.”

Draco laughed in delight and reached out to shrink Potter’s trunk and spell it into his pocket without letting go of Potter. Then he turned around with him in his arms and Apparated. He would return later for his mortar, his pestle, his gemstones.

For now, all he wanted to feel was Potter in his arms and Potter snarling out a defiant challenge against his cheek.


End file.
